Individual Agency and Policy Change at the United Nations

Ingvild Bode is a JSPS postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan.

• 1. Introduction, 2. The agency of empowered individuals, 3. Accounting for the influence of empowered individuals in the United Nations system: The constitutive empowerment model, 4. Mahbub ul Haq and the idea of human development, 5. Francis Deng and the concern for internally displaced persons, 6. Marrack Goulding and the diversification of peacekeeping, 7. Conclusion

‘Bode’s innovative study extends understanding of individual agency in United Nations decision-making in vital new directions. The work is analytically rich and compelling, and serves as a valuable resource for those interested in international organization, international bureaucracy, decision-making, and tracing new ideas in the global arena, along with providing illuminating details on Francis Deng, Marrack Goulding, and Mahbub ul Haq.’ - Kent Kille, Professor of Political Science, The College of Wooster, USA‘Ingvild Bode opens the black box of international bureaucracy to find that international civil servants are not the slaves of member states but rather have agency and can make a difference. Her in-depth analyses of non-career staffers—or inside-outsiders or outside-insiders—contain insights for how to rock the UN’s normative and operational boats.’ – Thomas G. Weiss, Presidential Professor of Political Science, The Graduate Center, CUNY'A concise and original contribution to the growing literature on individual agency in international organizations. It offers a number of sharp conceptual lenses as well as in-depth empirical studies of personalities that have proven to be crucial for the work of the United Nations in the realm of development and security. The results of this study will be of interest to practitioners and researchers alike.' - Manuel Fröhlich, Professor of International Organisations and Globalization, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena